It seemed to me as if enough of the beautiful pink buds nestling in
their delicate green leaves were being tied up to supply all London, but
I was exceedingly ignorant then.
Mine was not a hard task; and as I attended to it, whenever Ike, who was
packing, had his eyes averted from me, I had a good look at him. I had
often seen him before, but only at a distance, and at a distance Ike
certainly looked best.
I know he could not help it, but decidedly Ike, Old Brownsmith's chief
packer and carter, was one of the strongest and ugliest men I ever saw.
He was a brawny, broad-shouldered fellow of about fifty, with iron-grey
hair; and standing out of his brown-red face, half-way between fierce,
stiff, bushy whiskers, was a tremendous aquiline nose. When his hat was
off, as he removed it from time to time to give it a rub, you saw that
he had a very shiny bald head--in consequence, as I suppose, of so much
polishing. His eyes were deeply set but very keen-looking, and his
mouth when shut had one aspect, when open another. When open it seemed
as if it was the place where a few very black teeth were kept. When
closed it seemed as if made to match his enormous nose; the line formed
by the closed lips, being continued right down on either side in a
half-moon or parenthesis curve to the chin, which was always in motion.
A closer examination showed that Ike had only a mouth of the ordinary
dimensions, the appearance of size being caused by two marks of caked
tobacco-juice, a piece of that herb being always between his teeth.
This habit he afterwards told me he had learned when he was a soldier,
and he still found it useful and comforting in the long night watches he
had to take.
I have said that his eyes were piercing, and so it seemed to me at
first; but in a short time, as I grew more accustomed to him, I found
that they were only piercing one at a time, for as if nature had
intended to make him as ugly as possible, Ike's eyes acted independently
one of the other, and I often found him looking at me with one, and down
into the barge basket with the other.
Old Brownsmith had no sooner left the pit than Ike seized a couple of
handsful of roses, plunged with them into the basket, bobbed up, and
looked at me with one eye, just as he caught me noticing him intently.
"Rum un, ain't I?" he said, gruffly, and taking me terribly aback. "Not
much to look at, eh?"
"You look very strong," I said, evasively.
"Strong, eh? Yes, and so I am, my lad. Good un to go."